Internet Telephony Gets More Freedom

Internet Telephony Gets More Freedom

Techtree News Staff, Aug 19, 2008 1530 hrs IST

TRAI removes restrictions on Internet telephony, thereby allowing users to make calls from personal computers to fixed line and mobile phones

The Indian telecom industry is seeing a revolution of sorts. It started with the announcement of iPhone launch in India, then the Department of Telecom declaring the 3G policy, and now, Telecom Regularity Authority of India's (TRAI) has recommended removing restrictions on Internet telephony.

With this step, users will be able to make calls from their personal computers to fixed line and mobile phones. This is great news for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) as this move will help them rake in greater revenues as more consumers would sign up for broadband connections to avail telephony benefits.

Until now, only PC-to-PC voice calls and PC-to-phone (overseas) calls were allowed in India.

It is recommended that National Long Distance (NLD) operators shall be permitted to connect to ISPs through public Internet (Internet cloud) for unrestricted Internet telephony. For this, NLDs and ISPs shall have mutual agreement for unrestricted Internet telephony.

However, emergency number dialing has not been mandated to ISPs. Further, ISPs that wish to provide unrestricted Internet telephony will have to install Lawful Interception equipment.

According to TRAI, "It is envisaged that the customers will ultimately benefit from cost effective and innovative Internet Telephony service. The business model of ISPs will improve without impacting access providers due to increase in the telephony call volumes."

The unrestricted telephony service is expected to escalate competition in the Indian long distance section, along with further reduction in STD rates in the country.